MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The dust has settled on a troubled, yet heroic memory for Claudette Colvin, who no longer has a criminal record for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman during the segregation era.  

Her record has been expunged by the state of Alabama. 

Colvin recalled that day, March 2, 1955 — only 15 years old at the time and nine months before the arrest of Rosa Parks — when she was pulled off a bus by police and jailed for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman.  

“At that particular moment, I tell people that it felt as though Harriet Tubman’s hand was pushing me down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth’s hand was pushing me down on the other. So therefore, history had to be glued to the seat, that’s the reason I could not move,” Colvin said at a Dec. 15 press conference.  

Judge Calvin Williams approved the expungement request in Montgomery County Juvenile Court Nov. 24, ordering the shredding of all records pertaining to Colvin’s arrest including arrest, complaints, referrals, petitions, reports and orders.

In 2016, the Alabama legislature approved “The Rosa Parks Act” which set up a processes to pardon Parks and others arrested for violating segregation laws. However, arrests would still be public record, unless expunged, according to the bill.

Colvin’s Oct. 26 expungement request was granted “as a measure of statutory right and fairness to (Claudette Colvin) for what has since been recognized as a courageous act on her behalf and on behalf of a community of affected people.”

Following her arrest and conviction, Colvin was sentenced to indefinite probation for violating Alabama’s segregation laws and assaulting an officer while being removed from the bus 66 years ago. The court never informed her that her probation ended and her family has lived since thinking she was still on probation. 

“Although my record is expired, I’ll always be remembered as the girl that was nine months before Rosa Parks and that I’ll always be remembered by older people that are still living as the girl in the bus thing,” Colvin said.  

Colvin is one of the two survivors of the Browder v. Gayle U.S. Supreme Court case, a February 1956 filing that challenged Montgomery’s ordinances requiring segregation on Montgomery buses. The case was successful and pivotal in impacting public transportation throughout the United States.

Though the day she was dragged off the bus and placed in an adult jail replays as a “horror story,” she said. Colvin said she is appreciative to no longer be considered “a juvenile delinquent” through the expungement. 

“I get a chance to tell my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren what the life was like living in segregated America, in segregated Montgomery,” Colvin said. “The laws, the hardship and intimidation that took place during those years and the reason why I took a stand and defied the segregated law. I really appreciate the judge for taking the time to [expunge my record] and that they took the interest in my case — and to me this is serious business.”